


Back to you

by The Sign of Tea (NoPlastic)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fix-It, Implied Sexual Content, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-25 16:05:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9827918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoPlastic/pseuds/The%20Sign%20of%20Tea
Summary: Mary returns to Irene, but the past took its toll on her.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A ficlet, written for Femslash February.

In the cold light of morning, things look different. The dark has been condensed into thick shadows that make angles and edges stand out. Through the window, the city looks like a futuristic dream.  
Irene turns around and looks at her lover, the woman she took to bed last night. There’s nothing cold or angular about _her_ \- she radiates warmth and softness all the way from her small feet to her honey-colored hair. One could say she is the opposite of Irene. Especially when Mary is asleep, like now, she looks like the embodiment of peace. It’s the perfect facade she has cultivated to mask her true self.

Irene Adler hides her feelings behind callousness and arrogance. Mary Watson doesn’t need to hide, because no one ever suspects how dangerous she can be. The fact that she’s here now proves it.

They don’t belong to each other, Mary and Irene. Like the men they love, they seem to be so different, and yet they’re irresistably drawn into each other’s lives, not able to make any lasting connections except for _this, whatever this is._ The fact that they’re both on the run is what finally reunited them. _  
_

“I had to leave my life behind to protect my family,” Mary explained when she came back from London. She said it as if it was a normal and common thing anyone could have done. “The past was catching up with me. I’d been expecting it, took precautions. I faked my death.”

Irene just nodded, pretending not to be moved.

“How did you do it?” Irene asked on their way from the airport to the hotel. To other people, it looked like small talk between casual friends who hadn’t been apart for long.

“Saved Sherlock’s life. Got shot at. Bulletproof vest, fake blood. I paid the paramedics not to say a word to anyone.”

“You paid them?”

“I just told you I did. You used to be a good listener. Did America change you that much?”

“Did you kill them?”

Mary gave her a meaningful look and said nothing.

As soon as the hotel room’s door closed behind them, Irene threw her arms around Mary and cried helplessly on her shoulder. She felt Mary’s pain combined with her own like a knife in her heart. Irene knew what it was like to make people she loved and valued believe she was dead. How it felt to be forced to leave parts of herself behind that she would never get back.

"I'm so glad you survived," she whispered.

Mary comforted her without shedding a single tear.

Not a day later, they found their old rhythm again, and dealt with pain in ways they could control, Irene as the dominatrix and Mary as the weak one in need of punishment.  
Outside the bedroom, Mary says she’s fine, eveything’s alright, no need to worry. She looks tired, and the lines on her face deepen from day to day.

“I can tell you’re not sleeping,” Irene says, using her softest voice just in case she’s wrong and Mary is in fact still asleep. She needs rest; but of course Irene is right, and Mary openes her eyes.

“How can you tell?” she asks, and laughs as if she’s truly astonished. “I’ve been able to trick people into thinking I’m dead.”

Irene isn’t sure if she’s supposed to laugh at this kind of gallows humour, so she settles for a crooked grin.

“I guessed,” she says gently. “You’re not sleeping well at the moment.”

Mary gives her an amused smile. It doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

No matter how many lies Mary hides behind, her eyes always tell the truth. It’s there, in the shocking hopelessness under the surface, like a bottomless well Irene could sink into if she looked at her for too long. Mary has seen it all, all the bad things in the world.

“I never thought I would say this to anyone, but I actually wish I could make you happy.”

“That’s nice of you,” Mary replies, still smiling. “I was happy for a while, now I don’t need it anymore. Come back to bed. It’s getting cold.”

“It’s getting cold because you’re not under the covers and you’re naked,” Irene quips.

“Good deduction, clever girl. Warm me up.”


End file.
